A little boy with darker skin and dark hair is praying with his head down. I watch in fascination as he’s doing it. He pops his head up and big brown eyes hit me in the gut.
Kat. He looks just like her with those eyes.
The last pieces of the puzzle come together, and I see it all clearly. She left him with this couple to save him. Matias may be already aware that he has a son with Kat. I suspect he does know, and if he doesn’t find him, he will kill us all to get to him.
I know that I will die for this boy, too, because Kat sacrificed her life for him and other kids just like him.
Matias won’t be stopped until he’s dead. None of us are safe until his body takes its last breath on this earth.
Chapter 3
Spider
With Kat in my arms, I haul her off to my truck by myself, where I have Solo waiting for us out of sight.
“Take my bike back to the clubhouse,” I order him.
The whole time, I keep an eye on the streets, looking for the Cartel. After Kat and I are safely inside, I call the doctor and peel out of there. The police sirens are getting louder by the second and our time is running out. As soon as he answers, I update him on Kat’s condition while I weave in and out of traffic.
Panic is setting in and I need her the hell awake. This is some freaky shit. I’m not even sure she’s alive after the impact of the car crash and what Matias might have done to her. He could have choked her to death for all I know.
It takes me forty minutes to get to the abandoned mine. We all agreed before this started that she couldn’t go to the hospital if anything happened. Matias would locate her easily there, and it would obviously be the first place to look.
Kat’s head is bobbing side to side with every turn and bump on the old dirt road. As soon as I reach the mine, I slam my foot on the break, lurching the truck forward. It skids sideways and dust flies around us like a cloud. Hurriedly, I get Kat out, wrapping her up in my arms and carrying her inside.
I lay her down on the same cot that Pawn used when he kept watch over Feather, or, rather, Emily Scott, here. I hold my fingers to her wrists and then neck, looking for a pulse. I can’t feel anything. Shit. I can’t feel her chest rise or fall either, and the doctor warned me not to touch her. But I do set his equipment up as instructed. My hand goes inside my cut for my pack of smokes and I light one up while pacing the floor. And I wait.
A car door slams outside after what feels like hours, and I meet him at the entrance, holding the door open for him. The doctor quickly begins his exam of Kat’s body. He checks her breathing with a stethoscope before attaching pads to her chest under her shirt and flipping a machine on that registers a barely-there heartbeat.
“Hand me the IV I brought. It has meds to help counteract the paralytic she ingested.”
Fear laces my veins and I pray that she is alive. I also pray that Tank doesn’t kill us all for what we did.
The doctor interrupts my thoughts after checking her over. “She’s alive but took a bad hit to the head and may have bruised some ribs in the crash. Give her time to wake up. I’ll be back to check on her.” He writes a few notes down on a pad of paper before leaving and giving me more instructions.
I pull my phone out and give Blade a call. “Spider,” he answers right away.
“She took a hit to the head and has bruised ribs, but she’s alive. Where is Tank? He needs to get up here.”
“He took off before we could tell him what happened, and his phone is off. I can’t call him. The boys are out now looking for him.”
An exhausted breath escapes me. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck. Keep her alive and keep me posted.” He hangs up and my hand drops to my side.
When will this shit ever end? Something tells me it’s about to get worse yet before it starts getting better.
Kat
A painful gasp startles me awake, and I start choking on air. My ribs feel like shattered glass. I hold my chest trying to compress them while my body refuses to stop coughing. Keeping myself tight, I roll over and fall to the floor, with the nausea that hits me turning my stomach. But I can’t breathe and keep choking every time I try inhaling. My lungs violently protest the stress from practically being dead. On my hands and knees, I continue coughing and choking until it slowly starts to get better.
Another minute and I am able to take a few calming, deep breaths in. There is water sitting next to the cot and I take gulps of it, holding the glass with one shaky hand as I look around. I’m at the mine. That means we failed, and Matias is alive. Damn it.
It’s pitch black in the room except for a small lamp on the desk which lights up a little of the area around it. I push myself up from the floor and my head spins from the movement. My eyes shut and I wince from the massive headache and throbbing pain on the left side of my head. Flashbacks hit me every which way. I see Matias at Tami’s house and then punching me in the car.
I set the water down and hold my throbbing temples for a moment before I go in search of Tank. He can’t be too far.
As soon as I step outside the front door, a whisper of smoke catches my attention.
“You look pretty alive for a dead girl.”
“Spider, where is Tank? And what happened?”
“Don’t know.” He pulls in a long drag and I wait until he exhales. “Tank lost his shit. He shot at the SUV and it crashed with you inside. I don’t think he realized you were in there. He took off before we could explain to him that you were alive. I can’t track him down.”
Holy shit, this is bad. This game is a fucking mess.
“How can you guys not be able to find him? I told you all that waiting for Matias was a bad idea, that it wouldn’t work.” My hands run over my face and through my long hair. “Get me out of here. I have to go find him. How long was I out?”
Spider tosses his smoke in the dirt and turns toward me. “You’ve been out for two days. You think you can find him, Kat? We’ve been looking for him and haven’t had any luck, but you can?”
“Spider, you are looking for him in all the wrong the places. You are looking where he would go. When, I guarantee you, he’s looking for me.”
“That makes no goddamn sense, Kat. He thinks you are dead.”
“Yeah, until he figures this all out or he goes after Matias alone, Spider.” That, and he had to have found the thumb drive, I just know it. He’s a whole day ahead of us. “He’s going to fucking die in Mexico if I don’t get to him first.” I start pacing. “I need to leave and go after him.”
“How the hell are you going to get over the border?”
“I’m not going over the border. Matias isn’t leaving the States until he gets what he came for. Me. The only way to save us all is to kill Matias. He believes I’m dead, like we wanted. Now I can hunt him down and he’ll never see it coming.”
I was never supposed to make it back here so quickly. Matias was supposed to take me, but not in front of Tami. I steered clear from her, but he had known how to draw me out. I was going to kill him in his sleep after I woke up. The car crash messed everything up and now Tank is missing.
“Let’s go then, but it stays the same. No one is to know you are alive.” I couldn’t agree more, so I nod my head in the dark.
Spider takes me into Reno. He thinks he’s coming with me but he’s not. I don’t work with anyone and I’ll be faster on my own.
We stop at a gas station and he fills up his truck. I look around and spot a mom in a van with California plates. She picks up the toddler from the seat behind her and walks inside.
Quietly and slowly, I get out from the truck and creep around the pump, only to find Spider standing on the other side. His deep scowl startles me as he advances forward until we are nose to nose. “Are you Tank’s woman or not?”
I scowl back, “Don’t fuck with me, Spider.”
“Get your ass in the truck. You are on my watch, Kat. You don’t do shit without my say so. You are property of Battle Born, and you are not
leaving alone and hurt right now. If something happened to you, Tank would never fuckin’ forgive me. Move.”
His arms flex with the bite of his voice, and I believe he will make a scene to protect me, for his brother. He also knows that I can’t make a scene. Fucker.
Swallowing my pride, I get back into the truck and he finishes filling the tank while keeping his eyes pinned to my location the entire time. He’s not the Sergeant-at-Arms for nothing.
He slams his door shut and glares, “Where would Tank go first?”
I hesitate and almost tell him the cabin, but Tank is not there, I know he is not.
“He probably found the thumb drive I left for him which set him on a goose chase of clues that no one else would find but him.”
I take a moment to think, and gaze out the window. Spider starts the truck and pulls out of the gas station.
“My guess is that, by now, he’s in California looking for the family I asked him to save for me. Next, he’ll go to Mexico to kill Matias. We need to stop him.”
I say it more for myself than for Spider, and he doesn’t say anything back so he must agree that Tank just became a priority in this game of life or death.
Chapter 4
Tank
The rumble of another bike rolling up the street steals my attention away from the little boy in the yard. In my mirror, I see a Hispanic biker riding up closer, with a lit cigar hanging from his mouth. What the ever-loving-fuck is happening here? How did he ever find me?
“Que pasa, pinche pendejo?” Cuervo smirks while parking his bike alongside mine and looking around. “Nice white neighborhood.”
He looks around some more but stalls his movement and removes the cigar from his mouth to point with two fingers, “Aw, but that is no white kid. Now I see.” He places the cigar back into his mouth and takes a few puffs. “Say something, pendejo.” He arches his brow high up over his shades, looking irritated.
“How and why are you here?”
“Patched in with the Reno chapter, cabrón. As soon as I heard you went nomad, I came to save your ass from being stabbed.”
“Why would I be stabbed?”
“Because, estúpido, that’s all I thought about since I met you.” He takes another drag. “We need to move, ese. Before those white bitches call the cops on my brown ass for parking on their street. Entiendes?”
“Sí, pendejo.”
I can’t help the grin that creeps up the corner of my mouth when Cuervo’s head jerks back in surprise and then scowls from me calling him stupid. I learned a lot from Kat. And, instantly, that thought douses my mood. Cuervo nods his head and hits the gas on his bike, heading up the road. I crank my bike on and follow him deep into the city.
He doesn’t stop until he finds a place in town referred to by the locals as Little Tijuana. We park our bikes outside of a bar that’s blaring Mariachi music. As soon as we sit down, the waitress brings us two draft beers and shots of tequila. I take in the stares that the bar patrons give me.
Cuervo laughs and shoots his tequila, then takes a long chug of his brew. Where in the fuck did he bring me?
“Hey, cabrón,” he sets his glass down, “You keep traveling down this road alone, you’ll stay that way. The highway becomes a mistress to the life you once knew and loved.”
“What exactly are you getting at, Cuervo? I can’t go back there and live the life I had made there without her in it. I can’t look at the faces that were brothers to me but left me out in the cold. Tell me, old man, how the fuck do you get past that?”
“You fucking don’t. You can’t replace the love of the woman you loved. That will never happen.”
My chest heaves and I fight back the pain and emotion from showing in front of this man.
“I used to be you, Tank, muchos años atrás, many years ago. All laughs and jokes. Making a lot of feria, some fat cash on the side. Until Rosa died. I died with her.”
Cuervo lifts a hand up, signaling the waitress, “Una botella de tequila,” then points at the table. Fairly quickly, a cute young girl delivers a bottle. Cuervo picks it up and pours us shots, then pushes a glass toward me. I take one shot and set the glass down. He patiently waits as I pour and then take another, and then another. When I’ve caught up to his number, he continues.
“The anger replaced who I was. No more jokes and laughs. That’s why I hated you so much, Tank, you were me while she was alive, before I fucked it all up.” He takes another shot and refills the empty glasses. “Kat is mi familia and belonged to Rosa, and she loved her. Is that her niño?” he questions and then points at the bottle.
I shoot the liquid down my throat and allow the burn to mix in with the open hole in my chest. “I think so.” I grind my teeth to keep from yelling out my pain.
“What are your plans with the niño?”
“Keep him safe from his father and move him.”
“Then what?”
I don’t know, honestly. I’m living moment to moment and haven’t thought past keeping him alive. Cuervo sees the hesitation in my eyes.
“He could stay with the familia he has now and could be perfectly safe.” My gut sinks at that thought and something that I don’t even understand hurts. Some part of me had claimed him, and, until this moment, I didn’t see it, that this little boy has hooked me. “Or, what would Kat want?”
My chest tightens at his words and Cuervo continues on. He rips open a wound I wasn’t prepared for. “Maybe it is just me, but he belongs with his real familia. He has our blood. One day he’ll thirst to know more, and he won’t understand himself. Teach him, Tank, take him and be a father to him. You need to choose the road I never did, leave your mistress, and be a father.”
He signals the waitress back over and orders us a huge plate of tacos that we eat in silence. It’s odd that out of all the brothers who could’ve come for me, it was Cuervo. I could be wrong, but his words, I would bet my left nut that he’s never shared those words with anyone other than his brother, Fuego. A part of me appreciates the crazy bastard just a bit more than I did the day before.
“How are we taking the kid back?” he asks with a sly grin.
Chapter 5
Kat
Spider’s been hot on my tail and I can’t even take a piss without him knowing it. He knows I’m attempting to take off alone to go find Tank, and he is serious about making me Tank’s Ol’ Lady, literally. I need Tank back ASAP. I can’t live like this.
“Spider,” I call from across the motel room. “Do Vegas and the girls think I died?”
“Yes.” He watches me closely. “Why? You don’t want them to hate you when they find out you are alive?” He grins at his own snarky comment.
God, he’s a prick. “If they do, I can’t blame them. I can deal with it,” I bite back.
“Kat, you are going to learn what a family is at some point. They aren’t going to hate you.” He snickers, “They sure did rub off on you though. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk so much, and here I thought you were one of the guys.”
“Asshole,” I glare at his gloating face. “You should talk. You are always in everyone’s business more than you should be, and don’t deny it.”
We stare each other down, waiting for the other one to break. After a few seconds, I realize that we have bigger problems to deal with, so I snatch my clothes that Spider had brought for me off the bed.
I need a shower before we hit the road to go after Tank, and I have a new partner. Yay me. Slamming the door behind me, I hear Spider mutter, “Bitch”. God, he’s like the little brother I never wanted to tag along. My hands aggressively push the pants off my legs, and, when I grip my top to tear it away, my ribs protest with an intense pain.
My breath is stolen away from me and I let go of the shirt instantly. My hands start shaking and my eyes water. I slow down and gradually lift it up to find a large bruise on my left side. Somehow, my ribs were damaged, probably from the car accident. My fingertips gently graze over the purple and blue skin befor
e I am brave enough to lift the shirt again. With more caution, I attempt it again and slowly remove it without lifting my arm very far.
After my clothes are off, I stand still and stare at my face in the mirror. The monster bruise on my temple is a reminder of what happened. Matias, I can’t even say husband because he’s not that, he tried to kill me with a single blow to my head. The bruising ghosts over my eye and the side of my face, showing the brutal mark of a killer. Memories of the past creep in like an old friend. Of the man who raped and beat me for years.
The abuse I wear on my face now is the same one that I wore on my heart for years. If I could go back, I would shoot the cold bastard when he was lying next to me. Never again will I be the woman I once was. I’m stronger, and there is no room for the past anymore. He doesn’t hold my heart in his hands anymore, Tank does.
The hot water relaxes my sore muscles and I take a moment to clean up before I feel strong enough to fight again. I’m ready to go find my Ol’ Man. I want his brand. I want it all. And I want my baby back with me.
As quickly as possible, I put clothes on and braid my hair before meeting Spider back in the room.
Cold as ice, I hold my hand out and Spider observes me before handing over a gun and then a knife. “Welcome back.”
“We are taking the Tesla,” I inform him.
“The fucking what? How much money do you have, woman?”
I don’t answer but the squint in my amused eyes says a-fucking-lot.
Spider drives us to the storage shed and I’m happy to find what I do inside. An open laptop and a mess. Only Tank would leave it this way and my computer on. God, that man! How can someone so smart be so dense? I log off and Spider’s face is priceless.
Fighting for Forever: Tank & Kat's story, Part 2 (Battle Born MC Book 6) Page 2
